Fae
Fae are elusive beings with the nature of both spirits and bodies. They can manifest physical bodies easily and usually dwell in them, but they can transfigure them easily and have many of the powers of spirits. It is not normal for them to be able to demanifest entirely. These bodies are called fanar (sg. fana). Characteristics: * Transfiguration * Illusions * Mixed, hybrid, elemental/floral/environmental anatomy * Limited eating, often of strange substances * Demi-immortal on account of transfigurability One way of summing up fae is that they are hypermagical, readily transfigurable bodies. Most fae are sapient, but some can occur that are merely sentient. Bodily "death" does not lead to the sleeping of the fae's spirit—or rather its separation, for in fact, their spirits do not sleep. Fae bodies do not function like normal bodies and thus stabbing "the heart", for example, or any particular area does not kill the body. Destruction of the body will require the fae to use more energy to to repair it, or create a new one if there is enough left or the fae has enough resources to amalgamate one. In this regard, fae are first spirits and thus essentially spirits with a fleshly shell, rather than the standard body of a person. Fae, though, do not have undying spirits. Their bodies protect their spirits moreso than the common nature spirit has available to them, but once their mutable and enduring forms are fully destroyed, their spirit is vulnerable. Because their spirits are not undying, they do not experience soul sleep and so their spirits continue on awake, bodiless, looking for a body to possess—or if they are dissipated, cease to exist forever. Materially speaking, fae are akin to chimeras, with mutable bodies that have a wild adaptiveness to their souls. Their transfigurative nature is exuded from their forms. Almost all have a compulsion to express this in some subtle way. This has led people to believe that fae are incapable of taking a completely imitative form of any bodily creature—and for some that may be true. Fae have an eala spirit yet have bodies. Thus they are spirits which form bodies, as opposed to people, who are bodies indwelled by spirits. The aura of a fae is distinct. The relationship between their bodies and spirits is different than that of people's. Between its aura and chimeric markers, fae can be identified by those trained to do so. Many fae will live among people, some hiding their identity and others not, to various acceptance and supernatural retribution when revealed or ostracized. When a spirit possess a body—unless it is dominating a fae body or somehow inhabiting one which a spirit was ripped from—it cannot change the body like fae can in their natural frames. Were a spirit to find a chimeric body, it would become a demifae, but would never be able to achieve the full identity of such a being. The most dangerous of fae are able to sacrifice part of their fae body to corrupt another creature and turn it fae. This is one origin of some changeling occurrences and an explanation for reproduction with fairy wives. Fae cannot reproduce on their own. While some of them are simply sterile or lack reproductive parts completely, many fae are able to impregnate sapient hosts. Although they might be able to transfigure genitals as a part of their appearance, the complex workings for reproduction are not able to be conjured. Numeration The fae are numbered. Created once, enduring, yet unable to multiply. The scholar Lusulas calculated there were exactly 73,290 at their creation, but this may be only a wildly speculative number. See Also List of Fae Category:Fae